Nissan's Electric Sports Car Is Still In The Works, But It's Probably Going To Look Great

Forget the Nissan Leaf's pragmatic green buyers for the moment.
Nissan has big electric-car ambitions, and it's no secret that
they go well beyond the automaker's Leaf hatchback.

Part of those ambitions still involve a flamboyant, all-electric
sports car in the near future—a project that we asked the
automaker's global design chief Shiro Nakamura about in a recent
Detroit Auto Show interview.

The Leaf doesn't have a particularly daring design, concedes
Nakamura, because the company wanted to expand the market and
make people comfortable with EVs.

"Leaf is not that, because we wanted to make it affordable,
accessible for a broader customer," he said, adding: "At the same
time electric vehicles have much more potential to go beyond
normal design, with packaging."

Electric cars with in-wheel motors: outrageous packaging
benefits

Applying some of those packaging benefits, Nakamura explained,
you can get to something very special for niche customers, with
EVs, that you can't achieve with normal engine
configuration—especially with things like the in-wheel motor
technology that's been showcased both in Nissan's recent Bladeglider concept from the recent Tokyo
Motor Show—as well as in the latest Pivo3 city-car concept from 2011.

Would Nissan install in-wheel motors into a production sports-car
inspired by Bladeglider? "If it goes to production, we must,"
insisted Nakamura.

"It's not just at the concept level...We are making serious
progress with in-wheel motors; cost is becoming less of an issue,
and at a certain point we would like to use in-wheel motors."

"There's huge potential for something unique," he added.

How would a future electric sports car look?

The
2011 Nissan ESFlow concept.High Gear
Media

As for how such a future electric sports car might look, Nakamura
admitted that Bladeglider has some design attributes (like its
narrow front track) that might prove insurmountable for a global
product—especially with respect to safety—and that any production
car would likely have to be wider in front.

Instead, he pointed us to the so-called ESFLOW Concept Sport EV from the 2011 Geneva
Motor Show—a car that Nissan presented in well-developed format the time—noting that
some of the essence of that car, added to Bladeglider, could be a
production direction.

Looking ahead: Three design tracks for EVs

"More, we want to express the sportier, exciting part of EVs,"
explained Nakamura. "And in doing that, there are two new design
directions for Nissan electric vehicles—one, for a cheap city
commuter type unique EV; the other for a sportier, more exciting
EV with unique technology...and of course we'll have Leaf in the
middle."

If this happens, Nakamura added, Leaf will stay within the
expected Nissan design cues shared with the gasoline lineup, with
a hint of EV, while the city car and sports car would have their
own more radical design and packaging choices.

"It has to be within the Nissan brand" for those cars, he said.
"However we want to go beyond the normal Nissan."